


Liv Goes Inside

by Ashling



Category: Moonlight (2016)
Genre: 4 seasons 500 words apiece, Family, Love, M/M, Seasonal, Yuletide 2018, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Then the screen door slightly open, her dad laughing his same generous laugh. “Come on, man,” he said, and that was all good and daily but there was an undaily occurrence squatted there on the porch. And he was big, too.The seasons change, and so does Kevin's family.





	Liv Goes Inside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merisunshine36](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merisunshine36/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, merisunshine36! This one did, as you say in your letter, come from the heart.  
> Many thanks and much love to [Luna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna/pseuds/Luna) for beta reading.

Sun like the backhand of summer. Everything sticky, sweat in the small of her back and her pits and her socks and then melted orange popsicle run down onto her fingertips. She licked. Sweet and salty. Joanne had given her the popsicle but it was getting close to dinnertime so Joanne had gone ten minutes ago. That was all right. Liv could do just as well on her own, strolling down the sidewalk of her own particular street, a straight grey thing dotted with potholes, familiar territory and so good for drifting into daydreams while her feet led her easy down the same old steps.

Then the screen door slightly open, her dad laughing his same generous laugh. “Come on, man,” he said, and that was all good and daily, but there was an undaily occurrence squatted there on the porch. And he was big, too.

Liv knew that Dad wouldn’t let anyone bad around, not precisely, but Dad liked people more than Liv did even if she talked twice as much. And besides, as the stranger smiled up at the open door, she caught a glint of metal on his teeth to match the chain around his neck and she didn’t like that.

She marched straight up to the stranger and he looked at her with quiet eyes. Liv didn’t care for that either. She didn’t like most men, and completely quiet people were harder to trust. Talkers would at least tell you who they were, however sideways.

“Where you from?” she said. Her jean shorts were itching her and it made her mad not to scratch.

“Liberty City.” His voice was very deep and steady. He didn’t try to add anything on, which she disliked too. He should know he owed her explanations.

She called, “Dad!” and Dad came to the door.

“Dinner in ten, sweetie,” he said, like she couldn’t tell from the smell of it. Their kitchen was small but powerful, and if this man was sitting on their step, it was likely because the kitchen had got too hot for comfort. It also meant that he’d shown up at their house sometime in the early part of cooking and got so hot he needed cooling off.

She had about made up her mind to ignore the big man and was just going up the stairs around him, when Dad added: “This is Chiron. He’s gonna stay with us for dinner.”

Chiron was looking at her father now, arms still resting on his knees, hands dangling sort of clumsy, dark eyes watchful.

“He’s too shiny, Dad,” she said, looking at Chiron as she said it. He dropped the gaze first and she wasn’t used to that. She didn’t like things she wasn’t used to, either.

But Dad didn’t seem to notice. He smiled lopsided as usual. “Nah, he’s all right.”

Dad put his hand on her shoulder, gave her a couple pats for comfort. Wasn’t any use to argue. She went inside and washed her hands.

 

 

 

 

 

  
Big blue under big blue, waves frothing white a little at their crests, and all of it so mild it had her fooled. Liv walked into the water like it was fine and then found it was very not. Hop, skip, retreat.

“Come on.” Of course Chiron would say that, waist-deep already and standing like a tree, grey shirt moving to the water.

She twisted her face up at him, at his infuriating steadiness. It made her look a soft thing. Surely anyone else would have had the good manners to shiver at least a little.

Chiron’s lips curved into one of his nearly-smiles, and she wanted to be mad at him for the water, but she couldn’t. He was always happier in the ocean.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said.

“That’s what you said last time.” But Liv set teeth on teeth and dug her toes into the wet sand for takeoff. She was gonna go. Any second now.

Dad walked past her into the shallows, water just washing over his feet. She didn’t know why he liked her to learn swimming so much when he couldn’t even swim at all, but he smiled warm to her about it on top of making himself cold, so she set her teeth and waded in deep.

“Ready?” Chiron said, and she nodded. She felt Chiron put his strong arm around her shoulders, she pushed up off the sand, and suddenly she floated, precarious and fragile, on the surface. The sun wasn’t too hot this time of year but it was bright at that angle. She shut her eyes. She grabbed the hem of Chiron’s t-shirt.

Slowly, very slowly, she felt more like a girl than a leaf on the water. Chiron’s arm bore less and less of her weight, and that was alright, but when he tapped her hand, she shook her head and held his shirt tighter.

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” he murmured.

When they were done with the lesson, Chiron let her sit on his shoulders while he walked back to shore.

Halfway to the car, she made a discovery and turned to Chiron to share it: she did get used to the cold water.

Chiron had fallen a few steps back, walking next to Dad and muttering something about the drive home. Dad had his arm thrown round Chiron’s shoulders, was saying, “You better let me drive, Black.” She hadn’t heard Dad call him that before, but it had the same flavor as Kevin, the same as when other people called Dad by his own name and she remembered that he was a different person to other people.

Chiron looked as if someone had told him he could stay in the ocean forever.

She was still thinking about it when they got to the car. Dad opened the door for her. “You good, Liv?”

If she knew the words, she’d have a question. But she didn’t know them yet, so she nodded and climbed into the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandma’s back porch turned nearly blue in the late evening shadow. The chilly breeze set the trees to murmuring secrets to each other, sly and mournful. Hairs on her arm raised. Beyond the porch, something slipped away under the underbrush.

Liv found her dad there, half-lost in the gloom, leaning against the wall just to the left of the big white porch swing. Arms crossed, eyes half-lidded.

“I got three Milky Ways in my stocking,” she said cautiously. “You want a bite?”

“Sure,” he said quietly. The usual smile didn’t come with it, but the absence slid by so softly that she wasn’t hurt or offended.

Liv sat herself down on the porch swing, cross-legged against the chill, and deposited her hoard of candy on the seat beside her. Sorted them out just the way she liked them, Milky Ways set aside for Dad, chocolate with nuts separated from plain chocolate separated from Skittles and the rest.

“Hey, I been meaning to tell you,” Dad said, voice slightly louder over the crinkling of the wrappers. “Chiron’s not coming tomorrow.”

Liv stilled and looked up at him. “Why?”

“Cause he can’t.” Dad always looked at her when he was talking to her, if he could. They weren’t in a car this time, but she sensed he couldn’t anyway.

“Why?”

Dad paused for a second, and Liv narrowed her eyes at him. He surrendered: “The judge set his bail too high.”

Liv knew what that meant. She could feel Dad watching her, wondering how she was going to react.

“Which judge?” she said flatly.

“Why, Liv? What are you gonna do about it?” Under all the tiredness, he had on that look, that Dad look, like she was funny and wonderful and fascinating and a little terrifying all at once, and she felt bad that she didn’t have something to give him that was better than chocolate.

“I don’t know,” she said. She had run out of candy to sort, set to picking at the fraying edge of the porch swing’s cover, some kind of white plastic-based thing whose stiff threads scratched a little at her fingertips. Far-off came the screech of a night heron.

When Liv looked over next, she saw Dad looking back at her.

“Someone should tell them Chiron is broke,” she said.

Dad broke into a laugh from deep in his belly, and his eyes still looked a little hurt but he was smiling real. Liv felt a quiet burst of triumph. “You’re not wrong.”

She handed him an entire Milky Way, and he handed her back half of it. They ate in companionable silence, sticky caramel getting all in their teeth and chocolate leaving smudges they had to lick off their fingers, sugar and comfort all the way down.

“You wanna come inside?” she said, after they’d finished eating. “Uncle Ben is teaching everyone how to play poker.”

“No, I’ll be in later. You go on.”

Liv settled back into the porch swing. “I’m good,” she said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knees pressing into the side-boards of the raised garden bed, toes pressing hard into the sandy Florida soil, Liv looked up from her work, squinting against the evening sun. Chiron’s car slid sleek under the long shadow of the house opposite, and then settled there. She smiled.

Presently, he strolled up the walk and squatted in front of her. She noticed that he moved a little to the left afterwards, trying to block the sun from her eyes.

“What’s this?” he said.

“They’re sapodilla seeds. Aunt Nayely saved them for me.”

She returned to her work, carefully trying to snip just the very edge off the dark, glossy shell that encased the teardrop-shaped seed. It was tougher than it looked; the shells were unusually hard, Liv was scared of nicking the seed inside, and the scissors were dulled by years of use. She could feel the way Chiron watched her.

“What?” she said, after a minute.

“Nothing.”

After a couple botched seeds, she gave up and handed over the scissors to him. Without the slightest hint of smugness, he took the scissors from her and cut the edge of the seed shell perfectly. Liv rocked back on her heels and began planting the seeds she’d already cut. They worked in silence together for a long while, three rows’ worth.

“Dad and I been talking about you,” she said. It sounded sudden in the air. It hadn’t been sudden in her head.  
  
“Yeah?”

Even though Chiron was completely focused on the seed and scissors, Liv didn’t look at him. “Crystal’s moving away,” she said.

“That’s good, right?” Chiron had heard her complain about Crystal before, at length and in ruthless detail.

“Yeah, it’s good. Her mom’s selling a lot of the furniture.” Chiron finished one seed, and picked up another. Liv waited till he was mid-cut before she added, “Like there’s a bed. It’s for two people, but it could fit through the door. I measured it for you.”

Chiron looked up and went still, like the rest of his body had gone solid statue. “Yeah?” he said, so carefully.

Liv nodded.

For a moment, she thought maybe he’d got stuck like that, frozen. Or worse, that he was angry.

Then he smiled. Not the old slightly hidden Chiron half-smile this time. This time a full smile, thin slice of clean teeth showing, corners of his eyes crinkling up. The kind of sun you’d need to squint against, that bright.

The screen door squeaked.

“What you know about farming, Black?” Dad was there, wooden spatula in hand with a few grains of rice still clinging to it.

“Liv is gonna teach me,” Chiron said.

“Good. Lunch is ready.”

Liv took the rest of the unplanted seeds from him and put them back into a Ziploc bag. Then she shoved it in her pocket and stood, soreness from squatting suddenly announcing itself, strangely satisfying, in her legs. Chiron did the same, from his side of the garden bed.

They went inside together.


End file.
